Culture
A comment section recently brought out the topic of whether children are born with a moral sense and ended with BobN arguing as follows: … Young minds are very plastic and amoral. As Reagan said, freedom is never more than one generation away from being lost. Today’s society is filled with examples of young people…
A new poll finds that “56% of all Americans and 58% of those 18-29 years old say abortion ‘morally wrong’.” “Millennials” (those 18-29) consider abortion to be “morally wrong” even more (58%) than Baby Boomers (those 45-64) (51%). Generation X (those 30-44) are similar to Millennials (60% see abortion as “morally wrong”). More than 6…
My Rhode Island Catholic column, this month, takes up the corrupting influence that associations and images can have on our thoughts: We live in a society that’s much too quick to dismiss the significance of simple associations, taking on faith that the images that splash across television screens and flood public spaces couldn’t possibly lodge…
The photograph of the two-year-old Haitian being handed into his mother’s arms has got to be among the most amazing captures of human expression that I’ve ever seen. The ordeal from which the boy has just been rescued is still discernible in his face, but his focus on his mother mixes with, well, almost surprise,…
Theodore Dalrymple’s look back at Sherlock Holmes, the literary, not cinematic, character, makes a conservative desire to read the books again and avoid the movie. When the film’s trailer appeared, I lamented the cultural insecurity that requires every hero to be a such a superhero as to exist outside of societal etiquette. Robert Downey Jr.’s…
I’ve been meaning to point out a problem with Lefteris Pavlides’s objection to a recent report that Rhode Island is among the unhappiest states in the country. Declares Pavlides: Year after year the so-called “happy” states are on the top of broken homes and children in single families. For my money whole, two-parent families have…
Joe the Plumber….Rick Santelli….“General” Larry Platt? There’s something about wannabe American Idol auditioner Larry Platt’s song “Pants on the Ground” that is striking a chord. PANTS ON THE GROUND Pants on the ground Pants on the ground Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground With the gold in your mouth Hat turned…
In a This I Believe – RI segment on WRNI, Jim Stahl, the former publisher of the children’s magazine, Merlyn’s Pen, talks about the creative wisdom of children. Me, I don’t believe this notion of the wise youth. Almost by definition, wisdom is impossible for the young. To the extent that children seem wise, it…
It’s odd how details can lodge in the memory. On an annual basis, my parents would take me on the short trip over the border from our home in New Jersey to The Renaissance Faire in New York state. Each ended with a joust and hand-to-hand combat over a noble lady’s honor, and the children…
In response to an essay in which David Goldman suggests a connection between current events and recent trends in the popularity of horror films, Fr. Benjamin Sember, of Wisconsin, produces the following wisdom: Rather than trying to attach the recent rise of the horror genre to September 11, 2001, your article ought to have looked…